


Escape Isn't Freedom

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Community: 1-million-words, Dark, Gen, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, Symmetrina, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-27 04:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13240782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: Harry thinks he is done with the wizarding world. But is he?





	1. I'm Done

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 1MW monthly challenge to produce a Symmetrina. As per the rules, mine has the following pattern:
> 
> Ch 1 - 150 words - 1st POV  
> Ch 2 - 300 words - 2nd POV  
> Ch 3 - 600 words - 3rd POV  
> Ch 4 - 300 words - 2nd POV  
> Ch 5 - 150 words - 1st POV

I’m done.

I fulfilled their prophecy, I destroyed the horcruxes, I stopped old snakeface, and I saved as many people as I could.

And all of it without so much as a thank you. Figures.

Well I’m done.

People like Malfoy claimed the Imperius _again_ and the rest, like stupid sheep, let them get away with it. Well they can have each other and the wizarding world. The whole place is rotten to the core, and with the exception of a few people, I won’t miss it.

Sure, magic is great and all, but you don’t have to be part of the wizarding world to practice it. Their bureaucracy just complicates life. A secluded place, some strong wards, maybe a House Elf to help, and you can get along just fine without the rest of it. 

And it's not like anyone will care to come after me.

So I’m done.


	2. A Disturbance

You wake up in the morning and it is a perfectly normal day. Then, for just a moment, before you can even get up, you realize that something feels wrong. It feels like the air has been sucked from the room and you’re experiencing explosive decompression like they show in every outer space horror movie. Not that you’ve seen any of those since you were much younger, because who goes back into the Muggle world, really? But the idea persists, though hazy in your memory, still strong enough to give context to the feeling that strangles you now.

It only lasts for a moment and then you’re back to normal. The room is the same. The view out your window is the same. You, your life, even your breathing is the same. Same same same enough to make you doubt that anything had even happened.

But something has shifted. You know that deep down inside, even if you can’t explain why. You just know that in that moment of wrongness, something changed forever.

You spend the next few hours feeling like you’re sleepwalking through your life. You go through the motions of your day, but your mind is busy working, flailing, trying to figure out what went so very wrong this morning. There is nothing in the paper, nothing on the wireless, and no frantic owls or floo calls. Nothing to give you a hint; to say that you weren’t the only one.

By lunch, you begin to think that maybe you _were_ the only one who felt that disturbance this morning? Maybe you were still dreaming, and only thought you were awake? Maybe this is all in your head. But something desperately tugs at the back of your mind, at the very core of your magic, saying

_maybe not._


	3. Visions

Luna frowned. She usually found that laying in the grass, looking up at the sky through the leafy branches of her favorite tree, was quite a calming place to be. Usually, the visions didn’t bother her there.

But today, even her usual retreat was not enough of an escape from the future. Today the visions still sought her out and pressed upon her mind, despite her wishes. Usually, Luna accepted her gift just as her mother had taught her. She let the visions wash over her as they willed, and picked out the clearest parts.

However, there had been moments, on rare occasion in her life, when the visions were more intense, demanding that she see every second of the future they foretold. This was one of those days, and Luna forced herself to relax. She couldn’t fight against the intrusion on her mind or they would press forth even harder.

The last day that this had happened, had been the day that Harry decided to leave the wizarding world. Luna had understood his reasoning, and even agreed. So she had listened to the visions and done everything that she could to help her friend. She helped him investigate the houses that Gringotts had for sale, and pick the perfect one for him.

She helped him deal with the knowledge that he was only able to buy this house because the former occupants had been killed by Voldemort, and that indeed their entire family had been wiped out. She helped him plan the wards he would need, and even helped him cast them. The magic was all Harry’s, but when he exhausted himself in casting them, she dragged him into his tent, poured the restorative draughts down his throat, fed him a hearty dinner, and watched over him as he slept.

Luna even helped Harry find a suitable House Elf to work for him - another thing Gringotts had an abundant supply of at the moment. But Dally was perfect for Harry; able to function in both the Muggle and Magical worlds, and with a slightly pushy personality. She would make Harry eat when he forgot, and refuse to let him waste away in a sulk. Harry called her ‘a calmer, more maternal, Dobby.’

Luna did as the visions wanted, and helped Harry hide from the rest of the wizarding world. But even then, she had known that he could not hide forever. And today’s onslaught only served to prove that.

Harry may have turned his back on the Wizarding world, but they would never return the favor. Once another Dark Lord or lady rose, once another prophecy was made, once another emergency situation occurred that seemed to call for a hero, then they would be back. They would find a way to hunt Harry down, and if they couldn’t find him, then they would hurt him from afar.

Those who didn’t know him would attack the Weasleys or Granger, thinking he still cared for them. Those who knew Harry would come after herself or Neville. Luna felt sorry for Harry at the thought that there were only two people left alive who’s deaths would hurt him. Her friend had lived such a lonely life.

And now fate was intending to make her friend’s life even lonelier. Luna wished that closing her eyes would close out the visions, but she knew from long experience that it would not. The wizarding world was coming back for Harry, and he only had one way to escape its clutches again.

Tears rolled down Luna’s face as she mourned the one soon to leave her.


	4. Free

You’re free. Finally free. Free from their expectations and betrayals. Free from their plots and plans and lies and schemes. Free from medlers and glory hounds and thieves and incompetents.

You’re also free from their love, and the joy of those few who did truly care for you. That is the price you have to pay for the other freedoms.

All of their plans called for you to stay, because none could ever imagine you leaving. One had even specifically engineered your life to that very point. But they couldn’t engineer your mind, or your will. They planned as though you were one of them; none of them realized that you weren’t.

And now all of their plans will come toppling down.

You earned your freedom the hard way, just as it seems you had to earn everything else. Always the hard way. Some thought that was part of your charm. Others thought it was part of your flaws. None realized it was the way they made you.

Of course, they will now. You will show them all their mistake, though none of them will realize that until it is far too late. You’re beyond them now.

Beyond the pain they made you suffer. Now they will suffer in their turn; you’ve seen to that.

So many will mourn your name, and what you meant. Only a few will actually mourn _you_ , just as you mourned their passing from your life. If only there had been another way, but there wasn’t. They forced you to take this action. They made this the only way you could be free. They brought this upon themselves.

You are finally free. And the ones who sought to trap you will all pay, just as you willed it.

You are free. Or you will be


	5. True Freedom

I heard a voice in my dreams last night. I thought- honestly I thought I heard my mother. I have so few memories of her voice; her begging Snakeface for my life, and then her sending me to my death aren’t really great examples.

But I could have sworn that this was her voice, speaking to me as I slept. It certainly wasn’t Granger or Weasley or any of the other girls I know. It might have been Luna, come to think, but the voice was far too sensical to be the Luna I know.

So I guess that leaves me with the ghost of my Mother.

The things she said - I wish I could believe them. But I know, as long as I live, I’ll never be truly free. I might escape from the magical world, and for all intents and purposes I have. But escape isn’t true freedom.


End file.
